Network

OK just switched from Ubuntu to Fedora and as has happened many times before Web browsing has ground to a halt. Now i’m pretty sure its anIPv6 problem but most people will deny it, there is no bug they say, turning off IPv6 won’t help, etc. etc.Well LET ME TELL YOU LOT – There is a problem – To get to the google homepage and load it so that it reads done in the status bar took one minute and, oh, wait it still hasn’t finished.So in Ubuntu web browsing fast – In Fedora web browsing slow. Now don’t get me wrong I believe I had to disable IPv6 in Firefox for Ubuntu but as my settings have not changed ( I copied my .mozilla settings from my HOME folder) why would it not work in Fedora.So what advice do we get;Well i’m still waiting, i,ve got 4 tabs open and none have resolved yet, oh, yes, here we go, no, my mistake still going 1 minute later.“A common mistake is an incorrect MTU setting in your DSL router, PPPoE or PPP settings” – No don’t be daft“Other common mistakes are a bad DNS server configuration and a broken local network configuration” – No don’t be daft“which DNS servers are you using ?” – Same as before don’t be daft“it might be fedora 10 use of ipv6 as default . that your isp is having trouble with it or just your isp’s dns have you looked into “openDNS” http://www.opendns.com” Ah, “it might be fedora 10 use of ipv6 as default” yes aint that the truth but the “openDNS”, nah, don’t be daft, my DNS servers are same as they were. Next….

“The “ideal” way to disable IPv6 in a Fedora system is apparently to place this line in /etc/sysconfig/network:

NETWORKING_IPV6=no ” Yes tried that one, FAIL !So I went to Fedorasolved

If you find that anything is actually fixed by disabling IPv6, then you have found a bug. Make sure you report it at http://bugzilla.redhat.com. What ! are you kidding ! disabling IPv6 makes things work !

Things can go wrong when fixing your own computer so I can not be held liable for any mass chaos and destruction in your life caused by you reading and acting upon this information. (I was going to write that in all caps. but thought that might be shouting it too much)

(1) Hardware – setting up a wireless network.

When you arrive at your shiny new Linux desktop, on the task panel you will see the “Network Manager” icon. Left click for options including connect to your wireless connection or right click for set up options, select your wireless network and enter the usual info, SSID, Wireless Key etc. Then submit/OK and your done !

Well, except when there is no “Network Manager” icon. Of course not having an Internet connection at that moment is not the time when you need to download drivers for your network, so here’s a super useful tool available in Linux Mint and probably lots more distributions.

Although its very rare to need to restart a Linux PC this is one of the times I did, having logged in and out a couple of times and failed miserably to detect a wireless network.

However on that subject I’ve had some strange occurrences with wireless networks recently. My old Windows installation can no longer obtain an IP address from the router. As it happens that’s not a problem because I very rarely login in to it, but before I stopped using Windows as my main Op. Sys. all my Linux boxes had done the same thing, they could connect to the wireless network but not obtain an IP address, go figure as they say.